Is Microsoft Trying to Monopolize PC Gaming?

A storm is brewing between Microsoft and one of its top developer allies—and it could get ugly fast.

Tim Sweeney, co-founder of Epic Games, accuses the Xbox maker of trying to monopolize game development for PCs and calls on developers to stand up against Microsoft, in an op-ed published by The Guardian on Friday.

“In my view, this is the most aggressive move Microsoft has ever made,” says Sweeney. “They are working to turn today’s open PC ecosystem into a closed, Microsoft-controlled distribution and commerce monopoly, over time, in a series of steps of which we’re seeing the very first.”

It’s especially noteworthy that Sweeney would come out so strongly against Microsoft. Epic Games is a longtime ally of the company and the creator of the Gears of Wars series, which is one of the tentpole franchises on the Xbox. (Epic sold the rights to the franchise to Microsoft in 2014.)

At issue, Sweeney says, is the relatively new Universal Windows Platform, which allows developers to create a single program to run on all Windows devices, ranging from PCs and tablets to phones and virtual reality headsets. But to utilize those features, developers must agree to Microsoft’s closed UWP ecosystem.

“I’m not questioning the idea of a Windows Store,” Sweeney writes. “I believe Microsoft has every right to operate a PC app store, and to curate it how they choose. … The specific problem here is that Microsoft’s shiny new ‘Universal Windows Platform’ is locked down, and by default it’s impossible to download UWP apps from the websites of publishers and developers, to install them, update them, and conduct commerce in them outside of the Windows Store.”

Microsoft’s Windows Store, where players can buy PC titles directly from the company, has been a marginal player in the gaming world. Even today, it lacks many major titles. Valve Software’s Steam, which supports an open development ecosystem, is the dominant player in the industry.

Sweeney says he believes Microsoft is using its size and power to launch a long-term effort to dominate that market. In his memo, he petitions developers to reject the effort.

“Epic has prided itself on providing software directly to customers ever since I started mailing floppy disks in 1991,” he says. “We wouldn’t let Microsoft close down the PC platform overnight without a fight, and therefore we won’t sit silently by while Microsoft embarks on a series of sneaky maneuvers aimed at achieving this over a period of several years.”

How Tom Clancy Just Entered the ESports Arena

Ubisoft is gunning for the massive global eSports audience, which research firm Newzoo estimates is over 205 million gamers today. The French game publisher has partnered with ESL and Microsoft to launch the Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Pro League, a new global competition that will debut at Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice, Poland in March. Gamers will compete separately on the new first-person shooter, Rainbow Six Siege, across Xbox One and Windows PC. Each league will have an initial $50,000 prize pool.

David Hiltscher, vice president of gaming communities at ESL, says that no one has ever run an eSports project on this scale on two platforms simultaneously.

“While it is unprecedented, it feels so logical to me for a multi-platform title,” Hiltscher says. “Traditionally, the focus is always on one platform, excluding a significant chunk of the player base.”

Alexandre Remy, brand director at Ubisoft, says with players from both console and PC being able to follow platform-specific competitions and teams, this program has the potential to reach a bigger audience and engage more members of the Rainbow Six community.

This game also gives Microsoft MSFT a popular modern combat shooter to fill in the void of losing Activision’s Call of Duty eSports exclusivity to Sony SNE this year. Microsoft had worked with Activision on the Call of Duty Championship over the last five years, but Sony is now the official partner for that game. Microsoft also has built up eSports around its futuristic shooter, Halo.

Snoop Dogg Was Really, Really Frustrated With the Xbox Live Glitch:

Rainbow Six offers a different gameplay experience for Microsoft, and fans. The team-based game combines tactical planning with shooting as one group of players infiltrates a building to rescue a hostage, while the other team defends that building and the hostage with the latest weapons and gadgets.

“The difference in pacing—it’s slow and tense; the importance of sound, which is key to locate your enemy; and the overall brutality of the firefights —one-shot-one-kill lethality, combine to make Rainbow Six Siege feel different from most shooters on the market,” Remy says. “In the shooter genre, Rainbow Six has carved its place over the past decade with its focus on tactics and team play.”

Remy says Rainbow Six Siege was designed from the ground up for competition with features like the Cast Cam, which allows professional “casters” to follow the action and provide commentary to the live and livestreamed audiences.

Hiltscher says Rainbow Six Siege matches are more about the tactical approach, the movement on the map, and the coordination between teammates, rather than just moving your crosshair quickly and accurately, or getting to the objective as fast as possible.

“Rounds last longer, and it’s a constant tug of war of positioning, to gain the upper hand once the actual confrontation happens,” Hiltscher says.

This is important in forging a new audience in the growing eSports landscape. One of the fastest-growing titles out there today is Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), which is also a tactical shooter between elite soldiers and terrorists. And on the console front, Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is the leading console eSports shooter.

SuperData Research CEO Joost van Dreunen says it will be difficult for Ubisoft to displace either Call of Duty or CS:GO as the dominant shooter titles for competitive gaming.

“However, Rainbow Six is a strong enough franchise in its own right that Ubisoft’s focus is likely equally spread between attracting new players and retaining existing fans,” van Dreunen says.

The Rainbow Six franchise dates back to 1998, when the game launched on PC alongside a Rainbow Six book written by Tom Clancy, who also owned the game studio behind the title. Ubisoft now owns that studio, Red Storm Entertainment, as well as the rights to the Tom Clancy brand and all of its games.

Biff! Pow! Bam! Batman Beatdown Is Latest Blow for PC Gamers

For many critics, The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One version of Batman: Arkham Knight is a legitimate game of the year contender. The game is a rich, open world where players experience what it’s like to be the Dark Knight. Ironically, the PC version is more likely to be named the year’s worst title.

The initial Windows release of the game was so overrun with problems that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment pulled it from release soon after its June launch. When it returned on Oct. 28, the title included a package of free games, offered as a make-good for players. Then, just three days later, Warner threw in the towel, announcing it would offer unconditional refunds to anyone who purchased the PC version of the game.

“We are very sorry that many of our customers continue to be unhappy with the PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight,” the company wrote in an open letter on the Steam digital distribution service, the largest seller of PC games. “We worked hard to get the game to live up to the standard you deserve but understand that many of you are still experiencing issues.”

The refund was a PR black eye for Warner Bros.,TWX but for gamers, it’s a familiar story. Many high profile games that appear on both consoles and PCs have a significant quality discrepancy between the two platforms. Grand Theft Auto IV, for example, took eight months to arrive on computers after its release, and was still a poorly optimized version of the console game that ran sluggishly on even high end gaming PCs. Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs for the PC was also graphically inferior and came with technical stutters.

The continued problems are especially curious, since PC is a larger gaming platform than consoles, by some estimates. PC game sales last year were in the $25 billion range, while console software was about $20 billion, according to David Cole, owner of DFC Intelligence.

“PC has been growing silently and steadily,” he says. “It’s not a cyclical as consoles.”

The problem for domestic fans of AAA games like Batman: Arkham Knight is that the PC audience is global, while consoles still reign supreme in the U.S. That lack of geographic concentration among players works against them, because publishers often assign PC duties to a smaller or less experienced set of developers, while the ‘A Team’ works on the console version.

“[Publishers] know that most money is going to be made on the console version, so they focus most of their efforts on that,” says Cole. “With the PC version, there’s a ‘we’ll fix it when it ships’ attitude. They don’t want to put the resources into it.”

The perception isn’t entirely wrong. In the U.S., the PC has accounted for 13% of the total dollar spend on game software in the past 12 months (ending Sept. 2015), according to The NPD Group. That compares to 19% for mobile devices and 67% for consoles and dedicated portable devices, like the Nintendo 3DS. (Mobile holds a lower percentage since gaming apps are generally free or 99 cents vs. $60 for console games. In-app purchases are not included in the NPD figures.)

According to SteamSpy estimates, over 470,000 people own the PC version of Arkham Knight. The console version, meanwhile, was the year’s best selling game as of mid-June (a level it has likely maintained since then). Globally, the PS4 and Xbox One versions have the game have sold more than 5 million copies this year.

So even if every owner of the PC game were to actually request the refund, it wouldn’t be a massive financial hit. (And it’s unlikely every owner will request a refund, as some will likely continue to hope the game becomes playable.) “Their numbers are going to be pretty far up for the year because of Lego Dimensions [a just-released Skylanders-like console game, which blends video games and real world toys],” says Cole. “I think it’s not going to be all that noticeable in the full scheme of things.”

However, it could impact the company’s reputation and trustworthiness with PC gamers. “Consumers will think twice about buying a title,” says Cole. “They’ll be leary of anything [on PC] from Warner going forward—PC consumers are pretty savvy about those things.”